“You can’t do that, Loewe,” Lily said. “She’s sick.”
“Really? When my men are passed out like that I can usually punch them awake, but all right, have it your way. I’ll see you later.”
“Okay! Later!”
Silence once again fell upon the room after Loewe’s departure.
Okay. This is fine. Except, Liz thought to herself, there are no men here. Not a single one has shown up. Men. Don’t. Exist. There are truly. Seriously. No men. Anywhere.
At this point, she was wondering if the mastermind was the only man in his lair. Was there some rule against allowing men inside? But to keep his authority he’d need guards and laborers. How could he possibly not have any men around?
As Liz pondered her next move, the elf girl muttered worriedly, “What do I do? She’s not waking up at all...” She glanced at the clock on the wall, then spoke in a concerned tone, “Sorry. I think only Zenos can help you. He’s probably on his way home, so I’ll go fetch him, okay? Wait just a bit.” With that, the girl opened the door and scurried out.
Wait, she went outside? And she’d said something about going to fetch the mastermind. “This is my chance!”
Finally opening her eyes, Liz sat up on the bed. The caretaker-slash-torturer elf girl was gone, and she couldn’t sense anyone else nearby. She’d deducted that this dilapidated house was actually the lair of the ruler of the slums. However, she’d been having far more trouble than anticipated getting past even the front door, and had no idea when she’d actually be brought to the owner of the place. This could be her opportunity to find the entrance to the underground part of the hideout and, if possible, sneak into the mastermind’s chambers. There she could catch him off guard and use him as her pawn.
“Hmph. That was a bit of a hassle, but worth the patience. I’ll be the victor in the end,” Liz said. Suddenly, she felt a strange chill, and brought her hand to her neck reflexively. “No one’s here...right?”
She focused her senses, but still couldn’t feel anyone’s presence nearby. Life as a member of the Black Guild had made her particularly alert to the presence of others; she couldn’t be mistaken.
And indeed, Liz was right. Now that Lily had left, there were no more people in the vicinity.
Living people, that is.
***
“Um, is someone there?” Liz looked around, but found no one. Was it just her imagination after all?
Slowly, she lowered her feet from the bed to the cool floorboards. Beyond the cracked window, the sunlight took on a crimson hue. Repainted in twilight colors, the sky looked eerily unsettling.
“It’s kind of chilly,” she remarked, feeling unusually cold despite the fact it wasn’t even winter yet. Liz walked around the room, hugging her shoulders.
Besides the bed, the room had an old desk and bookshelf. She couldn’t find a path to the underground at a glance, but it could’ve been cleverly hidden. First, she tapped the floorboards here and there, but couldn’t find any spots that seemed hollow. Then, she checked the bookcase, filled with dubious books: human anatomy diagrams, an illustrated guide to bones, manuals on organs... There was no door behind the case, however.
She opened up a cabinet, and a pungent chemical smell filled her nostrils. On closer inspection, she saw bottles containing suspicious herbs and various liquids with poisonous-looking colors.
“Human anatomy? Strange chemicals? Creepy,” she murmured.
Could the master of this place be conducting human experiments? And given how thoroughly she’d been examined, was she going to be one of the subjects for said experiments? A shiver ran down her spine.
But there was no hidden staircase in the cupboard either. “I need to hurry. This can’t be good.” She was going to end up as the next experiment at this rate!
Toward the back of the room there appeared to be a kitchen separated from the main room by a wall. In its corner was what looked like a refrigerator powered by a cold manastone. After a moment’s hesitation, she looked inside, low-key expecting to find frozen, half-dismembered corpses within. Thankfully, however, there was nothing immediately recognizable as an eyeball or a limb—only neatly arranged, meticulously cut pieces of meat.
Liz decided not to think about what kind of meat this was.
She passed through the door and entered a room with a table set at the center. At a glance, it looked like a dining room, but given the kind of deviant that frequented this place, she couldn’t take it at face value.
“Hee hee hee...”
“Who’s there?!” Liz exclaimed, turning around at the sudden laughter to find...
Nobody. Nobody at all.
“Wh-What the...” Sweat formed on her back, her pulse quickening. Liz took deep breaths in an attempt to collect herself. Once she’d calmed down, she searched the room here and there, but didn’t find the secret passage leading underground.
“Eh heh heh...”
“A-Again?!” Liz frantically looked around, and...
No one. No one was there, yet somehow she could hear that voice as though it were right next to her. As though she weren’t the only one in the room.
Liz swallowed hard. “C-Could it be the voice of a victim of his experiments?”
“Ohh, it hurts! It huuurts!”
“Waugh! Eek!” Liz shrieked, trembling like a leaf in the wind. “I-I see what this room is for...”
So the mastermind conducted human experiments, dissected the bodies in the kitchen, then stored them in the refrigerator. As for the stored meat, well, no doubt it was eaten here—
“It huuurts! Don’t eat meee!”
As though coming from the hells themselves, the voice vibrated in Liz’s eardrums. Instinctively, she broke into a run. “N-No, stop!”
“Waaait!” called the voice, chasing after her.
“Ahh! Ahhhhhh!” Liz dived into a space at the end of the corridor—the bathroom. It was moderately sized, perfect to wash corpses in. “Oh, I can’t take this anymore! What is this place?!”
